Our Mission

Naughty Jester Games is a tabletop game publisher dedicated to creating amazing experiences and bringing together good friends. We strive to create an experience that will create that old atmosphere of game night with the family.

With that said. We feel it’s important to explain our philosophy to good game Game Design and what we’re striving to adhere to. We’ll add or remove items as we evolve.

Interesting Decisions rather than Random Dice Rolls. Randomness will always play a part in board game play but the heart of each game design should provide the player choices where you decide how much risk you want to take and that should be reflected in the rewards.
Streamlined Setup. Games shouldn’t take more time to setup than actually play. Always look for a way to speed up the setup and teardown.
Turn Planning. A player should be able to at least partially decide on a direction of play when it isn’t their turn. That doesn’t mean their option will still be available when their turn occurs but we strive to keep the game interesting enough to keep the player engaged even when it’s not their turn.
Simple Gameplay. Everyone knows the K.I.S.S. method (Keep It Simple Stupid) and that should be followed until such time as it’s not possible. If it’s not possible then the mechanism likely needs to be replaced.
Add Only Add the Rules you Need. Following rule #4 above obscure rules that are almost never used are unnecessary and should be avoided whenever possible. Clarifications might be needed but the ability to do something you never do bogs down gameplay and feels like cheating to those who don’t memorize the rulebook.
Game Mechanics Should Make Sense and be easy to Remember. If your rules make sense then remembering them should come pretty naturally. If you do this you’ll rarely have to spend the entire game looking up rules which is really the goal here.
Make Good Art. Crowdfunding sites in particular have made it possible to create new games and mechanics that wouldn’t exist without needing huge production facility. Generally is is a good thing but it’s also created a lot of games that have absolutely no artwork to speak of or artwork that clearly looks like it wasn’t professionally done. If we’re going to create something we we might as well create something visually compelling.
Theme should compliment the game. Make sure that your effect names, visual themes and choices are setup to work with both the game mechanics as well as the overall art style.
Allow players Agency. A player should feel like they have control of what they do and they’re not forced into anything. They may not have great choices due to circumstances but they should still feel like they have options available even when they’re losing.
Create Replayability. However it’s done each time you play the game it should be a unique experience. You want those interesting situations and if all possible you should find yourself choosing a different approach than last time you played.
Multiple ways to Win. There should be several ways to win a game. That’s not to say you need multiple win conditions but having several ways to accomplish those conditions (or stopping others from doing so) is needed to keep flexibility.
Add something Unique. There are a lot of deck builder games or move around the board games. If it’s worth doing then create something that adds something to the genre and makes something different. Simplify it, add mechanics, something more than just the same game with a new theme.